Samuel Johnson

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Chapman and Hall, 1853 - 106 páginas

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Página 71 - By spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company ; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt day he went abroad, and paid visits.
Página 53 - Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.
Página 75 - ... but rather much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker, sort than Johnson's ; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it, — though unhappily never cease attempting to become so : the Author of the genuine Vicar of Wakefield, nill he, will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine Manhood; and Dr.
Página 75 - He then burst into such a fit of laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion ; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleetditch.
Página 48 - Booksellers, are called good hands, he was the backwarder in making advances, or courting an intimacy with Johnson. Upon the first approach of a stranger, his practice was to continue sitting ; a posture in which he was ever to be found, and for a few minutes to continue silent : if at any time he was inclined to begin the...
Página 68 - Devils waiting for them, with insatiable throat, downstairs ; himself perhaps impranstis all, the while ! Admire also the greatness of Literature ; how a grain of mustard-seed cast into its Nilewaters, shall settle in the teeming mould, and be found, one day, as a Tree, in whose branches all the fowls of heaven may lodge. Was it not so with these Lilliput Debates ? In that small project and act began the stupendous FOURTH ESTATE ; whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take in...
Página 24 - In reply, is handed us a really graceful and most dainty little Scandalous Chronicle (as for some Journal of Fashion) of two persons : Mary Stuart, a Beauty, but over lightheaded; and Henry Darnley, a Booby who had fine legs. How these first courted, billed and cooed, according to...
Página 13 - That loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of his is as a picture by one of Nature's own Artists ; the best possible resemblance of a Reality ; like the very image thereof in a clear mirror. Which indeed it was : let but the min-m- be clear, this is the great point ; the picture must and will be genuine.
Página 23 - ... question : How men lived and had their being; were it but economically, as, what wages they got, and what they bought with these? Unhappily you cannot. History will throw no light on any such matter. At the point where living memory fails, it is all darkness ; Mr. Senior and Mr. Sadler must still debate this simplest of all elements in the condition of the Past: Whether men...
Página 14 - ... outcome; though here, too, there is not wanting a light ingenuity, a figurativeness, and fanciful sport, with glimpses of insight far deeper than the common. But Boswell's grand intellectual talent was (as such ever is) an unconscious one, of far higher reach and significance than Logic; and showed itself in the whole, not in parts. Here again we have that old saying verified, "The heart sees farther than the head.

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